


Some Secrets Don't Need to Be Kept

by squirenonny



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friendship, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, a softer version of the Galra Keith reveal, post-Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8953630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: Keith finds out he's part Galra. It's not as big a deal as he expects.





	1. Galra Tech

**Author's Note:**

  * For [XH](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=XH).



> Secret Santa fic for XH. Hope you enjoy!

Sometimes Pidge thought it had been a mistake to let Keith train in the Green Lion’s hangar.

It had been an innocent thing at first. After a couple disastrous weeks of training together (during which it became clear that Pidge was a terrible student and Keith was an equally terrible teacher), they’d just wanted a low-pressure way to hang out without the more… _social_ members of Team Voltron present. Pidge liked their teammates just fine, but sometimes it was too much. Keith got that, and spending time together in the hangar, both of them just doing their own thing, seemed like the perfect solution.

And it was. Mostly. Keith practiced his forms in the big, open space by Green, and Pidge sat at the desk by the door working on their latest project. Occasionally Keith would take a break on the imitation beanbag bed in the corner or Pidge would stop to analyze Keith’s fighting style (a much more efficient way to learn close-quarters combat than actually _running_ basic drills, in Pidge’s opinion).

It worked out. Pidge had even built a couple of training bots for Keith to spar against when the training room upstairs was “too crowded”--Keith’s code for “Lance is there and I can’t handle his face today.”

Usually, Pidge was okay with that. The noise of Keith’s training—footsteps, heavy breathing, grunts of pain, sometimes low-powered laser blasts from the training bots—had become a pleasantly familiar soundtrack to Pidge’s usual work on the computer. Conversations were rare between them, and mostly restricted to tactical questions about recent battles or brainstorming for the next generation of training bot.

Today, though, was one of those rare days where Keith couldn’t seem to stop talking.

“I mean, seriously.” Keith grunted as, from the sound of ringing metal, he blocked a strike by the reprogrammed Galra sentry Pidge had named John Cena. (Keith had already scrapped Hulk Hogan and Dwayne “The Space Rock” Johnson, and if he kept going at this rate Pidge was going to run out of wrestlers to name the sentries after.) “What does he even want from me? If you ask me to spar, I’m going to spar.” The sound of screeching metal raised the hairs on the back of Pidge’s neck, and Keith paused for a moment, his footsteps quickening.

Pidge glanced up from the Galra tablet they were trying to access. John Cena looked like he was trying to give Keith a bear hug, and Keith was having a hard time staying out of reach as he tried to land a hit to one of the vital sensors Pidge had installed—the best way to signal a win without completely trashing his opponent.

Keith landed a kick to John Cena’s gut that sent him flying back toward Green, who pulled her paw back to avoid a collision. Huffing, Keith shook his hair out of his eyes. “I just—It’s not _my_ fault Lance got a black eye. I don’t see what the big deal is, anyway.”

“It’s _Lance_ ,” Pidge said, turning back to the Galra tablet, which so far had remained completely unresponsive. They’d managed to power it on, but they hadn’t been able to hack their way past the Galra security measures. Pidge didn’t know if there was even anything important on the tablet, but cracking it would mean they had another way to access Galra systems that didn’t involve Shiro triggering a red alert or the rest of them having to dismember another sentry.

“What does _that_ mean?” Keith asked, a split second before John Cena jumped back into the fight.

Pidge’s finger tapped idly on the tabletop as they stared at the tablet in their hands. “It means Lance cares about how he looks. I mean, we’re pretty much evenly split here, right? Lance, Allura, and Coran want to look good. You, me, and Hunk have better things to do than shower three times a day and spend an hour on our hair. And Shiro pretends not to care but still always manages to have flawless eyeliner—just saying.”

“And?”

“ _And_ a black eye is kinda hard to miss.” Pidge reached over to their keyboard and keyed in a new command. “I think he’s mad because he’s not going to look as pretty as he wants to until that black eye goes away.”

Keith scoffed, and John Cena hit the wall so hard Pidge expected to hear loose parts raining to the ground. “Are you kidding? He could smear fertilizer all over himself and still manage to come out looking like the cover of a magazine.”

Pidge turned their head ever-so-slightly to look at the Green Lion, eyebrows raised. “Do you think he even hears what he’s saying?” they whispered, too low for Keith to pick up. This, honestly, was the reason Pidge sometimes regretted letting Keith train here. None of the other paladins could figure out if Keith and Lance were secretly dating or if they were both still pining over each other, but when Keith got talkative, it usually had something to do with his so-called rival.

Which was fun, sometimes. Pidge was honestly thrilled they always had a webcam recording (in case they needed to make note of something while they worked.) They’d captured so many blackmail-worthy sentences just in the last two weeks.

Of course, that meant they had to actually sit through long and meandering discussions of Lance’s various character flaws, which inevitably ended up overshadowed by his oh-so-charming personality.

Honestly, Pidge would rather be left to program in peace, but after how many times Keith had sat through a lecture about computer code, glassy-eyed and silent, Pidge figured they owed him.

Still, it was hard to focus on code with Keith whining in the background. With a groan, Pidge tossed the tablet aside.

Keith fought a moment longer in relative silence before calling out, “End training sequence.”

He appeared several seconds later at the corner of Pidge’s desk, nursing a water pouch. He was dressed in the plain black shirt and pants he usually wore to train, and his sweaty hair clung to his face.

“Everything okay?”

Pidge flung a hand out at the Galra tablet as they slumped lower in their chair. “Oh, sure. Just trying to do the impossible, as usual. Except that this time it might actually _be_ impossible. I don’t know much about human biology, let alone _Galra_ biology. I have _no clue_ how to crack a species-locked encryption.”

“Uh… Pidge?”

“Maybe if Dad and Matt were here. They’re the biologists, not me. But if they were here, I wouldn’t _need_ to be able to hack their systems, now would I?” Pidge covered their face with both hands, moaning in frustration.

“ _Pidge,_ ” Keith said more sharply. “I think you already cracked it.”

Pidge’s hands dropped. “ _What?_ ”

Keith had picked up the tablet and was frowning at it. Seeing Pidge gaping at him, he turned the tablet around to show Pidge a screen full of icons that hadn’t been there before.

“What the quiznak?” Pidge yelped, reaching out for the tablet. “When did--?”

The second the tablet left Keith’s hands, the icons disappeared, and the screen returned to blank purple with the faint outline of a hand.

For a long moment, Pidge just stared at it.

“What? How’d you _do_ that?” They shook the tablet gently, wondering if there was a loose connection inside that might have shorted out the biometrics. No dice. “Seriously, _what_? I’ve never been able to get past that security without Shiro’s arm. You _need_ Galra tech to use these—or, I mean, an _actual_ Galra, obviously--”

They fell silent, their brain finally catching up to their mouth.

“Oh...” Pidge spun toward Keith, grinning. “You’re a _Galra_? _Why didn’t you tell me?_ Holy quiznak, Keith! What were you doing on Earth? Why do you look human? Are you all Galra, or are you half human? Have the Galra already made contact with Earth? Is that why so many people have seen UFOs? Why am I only hearing about this now?”

Belatedly they realized Keith hadn’t moved since Pidge had taken the tablet back from him. He stood beside the desk, staring at it wide-eyed, his had still outstreched.

“Keith?”

His eyes darted up to Pidge’s face, then back down to the desktop. Shaking, he pulled his hand back to his chest and blinked furiously, wetting his lips. He’d gone pale, and Pidge was afraid he was going to collapse.

Alarmed, they stood and tugged on his sleeve until he backed away from the desk. He seemed more than a little dazed as he let Pidge guide him toward the beanbags, where he collapsed, burying his face in his hands.

Pidge sat beside him, their mouth hanging open. “You didn’t know?”

It was a moment before Keith reacted, and then only to shake his head.

“Oh. Jeez.” They adjusted their glasses, feeling suddenly awkward. “Sorry.” When, a moment later, Keith still hadn’t moved, Pidge inched closer. “Are...you okay?”

He lifted his head, glancing at Pidge, then quickly away. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before, clenching at the fabric of his pants, he found his voice. “Are you?”

“Me?”

Keith nodded.

Frowning, Pidge stretched out their foot and lightly kicked the side of Keith’s boot. “Of course I’m fine. What, you think just cause you’re an alien anything’s gonna change?”

Keith only shrugged.

“Well, it won’t. You’re still you, aren’t you?” Pidge huffed, then flopped backward on the beanbags beside Keith. “If it makes you feel any better, I can’t be sure you’re actually a Galra. Like I said, I don’t know how their biometrics work, so it’s possible you’re a false positive for some reason.” They paused, glancing at Keith for a reaction. He gave none. In fact, he seemed to barely notice Pidge’s presence at all, just stared straight ahead, his hands clenching and unclenching on his knees. “If you want to know for sure, you should have Coran do a blood test, or whatever the Altean equivalent is.”

“No.”

Pidge lifted their head. “No?”

“Don’t. Please. I...” He swallowed, curling in on himself. “Don’t tell anyone?”

The words twisted at Pidge’s chest. Keith wasn’t supposed to sound like that—small and scared and unsure. He seemed to be having trouble stringing words together at all, and he had yet to break his eerie stillness, beyond the motion of his hands.

But Pidge only nodded. “All right,” they said. “If that’s what you want, I won’t say anything.”

Keith’s shoulders relaxed fractionally, his eyes falling closed for a brief moment. “Thanks, Pidge.”


	2. Cold Shoulder

Keith and Shiro had been the last ones found.

Hunk and Lance were lucky enough to get kicked out of the corrupted wormhole in the same galaxy as the castle-ship, so it only took Allura and Coran a couple days to track them down. And Pidge had built a long-range transmitter out of spare parts they found in their “trash nebula,” which Lance claimed was some kind of communications officer space magic. (Hunk had tried to convince him Pidge was just being resourceful, but Lance was having none of it.)

After Pidge, they’d found nothing for close to a month. No word from Keith or Shiro, no sign of their lions on the scanner, no indication from friend or foe indicating the two missing paladins were fighting back—or captured, as seemed more and more likely with each day.

Hunk and Pidge spent their time tinkering with the scanners for an extra couple light-years of range. Coran dug through the distress beacons that were still pouring into the castle-ship, searching for any anomaly that might point them in the right direction. Allura cast her mind in a wider net every time she stepped up to the controls, sinking into deeper and deeper trances that left her shaky and exhausted, until Hunk feared each time might be the time she just… didn’t come back.

Fortunately, she found Keith and Shiro before she lost herself, and a few hours after that the castle-ship emerged from a wormhole high above a remote planet called Reft. The Red Lion, which had already been damaged from their last fight with Zarkon, was even more beat up after crash-landing on a mountain and had to be carried to the castle by Black.

Lance was the first down to the Black Lion’s hangar. Hunk and Pidge caught up to him just as Black lowered her ramp, and Lance fidgeted on the spot until Shiro and Keith appeared, both caked in dirt and grime, hair a little longer than Hunk remembered.

Breaking into a grin, Lance sprinted forward and met Keith at the base of the ramp with a hug that made Keith wheeze. He held his arms awkwardly away from Lance as Shiro, who stood half a step behind Keith, smiled and patted Lance’s shoulder.

For a second, Lance seemed not to realize he was hugging _Keith,_ his “bitter rival," the way he only ever hugged Hunk or his own family: arms around Keith’s neck, eyes squeezed close, stretched up on his tiptoes like he’d only barely stopped himself from knocking both Keith and himself to the ground. Then Pidge started to snicker, and though Hunk elbowed them, he wasn’t quick enough to keep Lance from noticing.

He stiffened, his grip on Keith tightening for just a moment so they were pressed more closely together. Keith, who still seemed a little stunned by the greeting, slowly lifted a hand toward Lance’s back.

Before he could commit to the hug, Lance shoved him away. Lance’s eyes were wide, his face a brilliant shade of pink, and he let out a thin, high laugh.

“Oh my _god,_ Keith,” he said, and for all he tried to make his voice casual, Hunk could hear the embarrassment simmering underneath. “I didn’t think it was possible for your mullet to get any worse, but boy did you prove me wrong.”

The words knocked Keith out of his stupor, and he scowled, swatting away Lance’s hands, which lingered still on his shoulders. “Really? A month with no contact and _that’s_ the first thing you say to me?”

Lance crossed his arms. “It’s an eyesore, Keith. What do you want me to say?”

Shiro chuckled, then left the bickering pair with the lions and came over to greet the others. Pidge tackled him, their arms around his waist, and Hunk’s hug a second later was as much to keep Shiro on his feet as to welcome him home.

Allura and Coran arrived in the hangar soon after, having verified that the region was deserted and Zarkon wasn’t waiting to ambush them all. The flurry of hugs and questions that followed distracted even Lance from the awkwardness hanging over the room.

They soon began to disperse—showers, food, and sleep as tempting to Keith and Shiro as they had been to the other paladins when they’d made it back to the castle. Keith drifted toward Lance, bumping their shoulders together, and though Hunk wasn’t _trying_ to eavesdrop, he made no effort to get out of earshot.

“What?” Lance asked, a wary look on his face, like Keith was going to pick a fight.

Keith just smiled. “I missed you too, cargo pilot.”

* * *

In the weeks since, it had turned into something of a dance. Lance flirted with Keith, but only ever in ways that let him stand safely on the foundation of plausible deniability. Equally often, he picked fights with Keith or goaded him into competitions that landed one or both in a cryopod for an hour or two.

Keith followed Lance’s lead in all things. Challenges were met with taunts and insults and escalating stakes. Flirting led to reciprocation—less subtle and less ambiguous than Lance’s efforts. Keith’s not-so-innocent innuendos, expertly delivered with just enough disinterest to not seem desperate, were one of the only things Hunk had ever known to leave Lance speechless.

Honestly, if Keith had set the pace for their relationship it might have gone somewhere by now, but he only ever took things as far as Lance was willing to go—which was, in effect, nowhere. It was enough to make Hunk tear his hair out.

He wasn’t going to meddle. He kept telling himself that, hoping that would eliminate the itch in his brain to sit his friends down and lay some things out for them.

Instead he had to deal with Lance coming to him for distraction—never saying outright that he was thinking of Keith, but vehement enough in his denials that the truth was obvious. And, nearly as often, he had Keith pulling him aside for advice. Hunk wasn’t sure what either of them wanted _him_ to do, since they both made it clear there was nothing between them and Hunk needed to keep their conversations to himself.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Keith wasn’t convinced Lance hated him, or if Lance was willing to cut it out with the ridiculous “rivals” act once in a while.

Hunk was almost relieved when things finally changed—except that the turn was decidedly _not_ for the better.

“I messed up,” Lance said, sprawled on Hunk’s bed, his legs draped across Hunk’s lap while Hunk worked on the shield generator he’d removed from his paladin armor. It wasn’t much good to him as it was, considering he needed both hands to lift his laser cannon, but if he could just figure out how to adjust the angle, he might be able to make it work.

Hunk lifted the device, squinting at the inner workings. “What, with Keith?” he asked. Lance flushed, as if _with Keith_ wasn’t the only topic that would get him to admit to being less than perfect. “What did you do this time?”

“That’s just it,” Lance said, flinging his arms wide. “I don’t know! But he’s not talking to me, so I must have done _something_ to piss him off. Right?”

“I dunno. Maybe he’s just having a bad day.”

“Four.”

Hunk paused, blinking, and lowered the shield generator. “What?”

“Four.” Lance crossed his arms and turned to glare at the wall. “It’s been _four_ days, and Keith can still barely stand to be in the same room with me. He’s always off with Pidge, and Pidge never lets me into their work space anymore.”

“You blow up a robot _one time..._ " Hunk said dryly, ignoring Lance’s pout. “Relax, Lance, I’m sure it has nothing to do with you.”

Lance lifted his head up high enough to search Hunk’s face. “You think?” He wore that puppy-dog look he had down so well (due, no doubt, to his extensive practice), but his eyes didn’t have the playful light Hunk was so used to and that, more than the dramatics, told Hunk Lance was legitimately worked up over this.

Frowning, Hunk set aside his project and patted Lance’s shins. “I’m sure. Trust me, Lance, if Keith has put up with you this long, there’s basically nothing you can do that would chase him off.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“That you’re a little bit of a diva and you’ve been picking fights with Keith from day one,” said Hunk, bluntly. It was the only way to talk to Lance, sometimes. Hunk wasn’t as good at wordplay as Lance was, so if he didn’t just come out and say what he meant, Lance would end up twisting his words around until neither of them knew what was a joke and what was honest truth.

Before Lance could get too worked up, Hunk tossed his pillow at him.

“ _But_ ,” Hunk said. “You’re also a great friend and kinda funny—sometimes.” Rolling his eyes, Lance shoved the pillow back at Hunk, who chuckled and held up his hands in surrender. “Keith’s suffered your drama long enough to see the good stuff underneath, Lance. He’s not dumb enough to think the rivalry is all there is to you.”

“I guess...”

Hunk studied Lance for a moment, wondering whether there might be something to his concerns. Not that Keith hated Lance; Hunks stuck by his assessment on that one. But maybe something else was bothering Keith. Hunk and Keith had never been the type to hang out. They were friendly enough, sure, but Hunk didn’t train any more than he absolutely had to and Keith didn’t much care for engineering, so they didn't hang out much. But Keith _had_ been quieter than usual lately, and Hunk hadn’t seen him in the kitchens or rec rooms for a couple days. He hadn't seen Keith with _Lance_ in that time, either, which was even more worrisome.

He wasn't going to meddle, Hunk reminded himself. He _wasn't_ going to _meddle_.

He was totally going to meddle.

 _Darn it, Lance._ Biting his lip, Hunk pushed Lance’s legs off his lap, which made Lance sit upright, frowning. “If you’re that worried about him, why don’t I go down to the Green Lion’s hangar and see what’s up?”

“You don’t mind?”

Hunk pulled Lance over into a quick hug, then stood and headed for the door. “Of course not. I’ll be back.”

Lance’s call of, “You’re the best, Hunk!” chased him out into the corridor.

Hunk started to second-guess his offer almost immediately. If something _was_ bothering Keith, would he view Hunk’s presence as an intrusion? Keith was the type of guy who needed space—space that Hunk didn’t always remember to give, when his natural response to any kind of pain was hugs and a home-cooked meal.

He wasn’t going to back out—he’d promised Lance, after all, and that was enough to get him over the worst of his self doubt. Still, he spent the entire walk down to Green’s hangar trying to figure out how to broach the subject without offending Keith. He figured he should just hang out first, watch Keith to see if there was even anything to be worried about. There was a difference between asking, “Hey, are you okay?” and “Hey, why are you avoiding Lance?” and picking the wrong one could bring the whole endeavor to a screeching halt.

Hunk knocked on the hangar door and, when he received no answer, cautiously pressed the access panel.

Keith and Pidge sat huddled together near the desk, their heads bowed over something in the palm of Keith’s hand. Both stiffened and spun toward the door as it opened, stopping Hunk in his tracks. Keith paled, his eyes going wide, then snatched up something from the desktop. His… glove?

He tried to turn his body to hide his hand as he tugged the glove back on, but he was only about ten feet from the door, and Hunk had a clear view of the dark, purplish rash that covered most of his palm.

“Oh my gosh. Keith! Are you okay?”

Keith froze, hiding his hand behind him. You’d think that he’d done something wrong, the way he was acting, not that he was—what? Sick? Injured? Hunk had never seen a rash that color, a vibrant shade somewhere between violet and lavender.

Pidge shot Keith a look, but quickly turned back to Hunk. “Okay, let’s all just. Breathe. Okay? Keith?”

Keith swallowed, his guilty, fearful expression morphing into one of irritation. He glowered at Pidge, who crossed their arms and scowled right back.

“You’re going to have to tell them eventually.”

Hunk watched their silent exchange for a moment before he ventured a question. “Uh...tell me what, exactly?”

Keith closed his eyes and very slowly lifted his hand back into view. He tugged off his glove and held his palm out for Hunk to see. Hunk hadn’t been imagining the purple color, but now that he had a good view of it, it didn’t look so much like a rash. More like the skin itself had changed color, like a tattoo or a bruise or…

Hunk looked up at Keith. “Hang on. What?”

Keith flinched, and Pidge kicked his foot. He grunted at them, then said, “I think I’m part Galra.”

“Oh.” Hunk stared at Keith’s palm—definitely a Galra shade of purple, now that Hunk thought about it—then up at Keith—cringing like he expected Hunk to whip out his bayard and attack. “Well that explains it. Let me guess. You found out about four days ago?”

Frowning, Keith lifted his head. “What? How did--?”

Hunk shrugged, offering him a reassuring smile. It made Pidge relax, but Keith remained confused, even a little wary. “Lance thinks you’re avoiding him because he did something wrong. Apparently it started four days ago, so...”

Letting out a long sigh, Pidge elbowed Keith in the side. “Okay, now you _definitely_ have to tell him.”

Keith spun toward Pidge, his voice rising in pitch. “ _What?_ No way! He’d probably chase me off the ship!”

“Why?” Hunk asked. “Just cause you’re part Galra? Lance isn’t like that.”

Keith gripped his hair in both hands. “There’s nothing _just_ about this. I’m a _Galra_. I’m one of the people we’re fighting against.”

Hunk lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Eh.”

Growling in frustration, Keith leaned backward against the desk and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “ _How_ are you so okay with this?”

Hunk and Pidge exchanged looks and Pidge, looking awkward, turned to fiddle with a radio transmitter they had half dismantled on the desktop. Hunk hesitated only a moment before closing the distance to Keith and pulling him into a hug. Keith stiffened, a startled noise escaping him.

“You’re our friend,” Hunk said simply.

Slowly, Keith relaxed into the embrace. “Oh.”

Hunk smiled.

“I _told_ you no one would care,” Pidge muttered, giving Keith a deadpan look as Hunk let go of him. “Now are you going to go tell Lance, or is he going to live the rest of his life thinking you hate him for making one too many space puns?”

Keith groaned, but turned and trudged toward the door.

Hunk watched him go, then glanced at Pidge. “Do you think one of us should go with him?”

Shrugging, Pidge plopped down in front of their computer. “Eh, they’re both big boys. They can handle it themselves.”


	3. Knock, Knock

After Hunk left the room to go track down Keith, Lance more or less just burrowed under Hunk’s blanket and braced for the apocalypse. He wouldn’t say he was hiding from the possibility of a very angry Keith coming to yell at him for sending Hunk, but he _was_ in Hunk’s room, covered in blankets, praying that when the door opened it would be Hunk, back with good news.

Someone knocked, which as good as confirmed that Lance’s visitor was not, in fact, Hunk. Lance briefly tried to come up with a convincing reason why Hunk would knock on his own bedroom door, but when his efforts turned up nothing, he sighed, stood, and went to open the door.

Keith stood on the other side, hands shoved into his pockets. He looked… well, not angry, exactly. But definitely not happy, and if the way he kept shooting looks down the hallway was any indication, he definitely didn’t want to be here right now.

Lance felt something inside him wilt at that, but he was nothing if not good at faking a good mood, so he plastered on a bright smile and leaned against the door. “Hey, stranger. Hunk’s not here right now, so leave a message after the beep. Beeeeeep.”

Clenching his jaw in a way that made Lance instantly regret the flippancy of his greeting, Keith glared at a spot on the floor by Lance’s shoes. “I know Hunk isn’t in there, Lance. He just cornered me in Green’s hangar to tell me you think I hate you.”

“Oh.” Lance paused, watching Keith’s face for any sign of his thoughts. “Does...that mean you _don’t_ hate me?”

That, finally, got a reaction out of Keith. He looked up, scowling, and fixed Lance with a glare that Lance knew all too well. It was his _why are you so hopeless_ glare. “Of course I don’t hate you, Lance. _Why_ would I hate you?”

Lance shrugged and scratched the back of his head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”

Keith sagged. “We need to talk. Can we…?”

He gestured past Lance into Hunk’s bedroom, and Lance was too busy pondering all the terrible conversations that could follow the phrase _we need to talk_ to respond with anything more than a nod and a hasty step backward so Keith could join him in the room. Keith closed the door behind him, which only made Lance more nervous. If a _talk_ was bad, then a _private talk_ was downright catastrophic.

They sat on opposite ends of the bed, an awkward, silent chasm between them. It hadn’t been like this since their Garrison days. Maybe not even then, because Lance was pretty sure Keith had genuinely not known Lance from any other middle-of-the-pack pilot. This was so much worse, because they’d _been_ close. They’d worked on their teamwork, and they’d built a friendship, and Lance had thought maybe something else had been growing between them, and now…

Now there was two feet and a ten-minute silence between them that neither of them seemed to know what to do with.

Lance turned toward Keith. “So… you know you can’t break up with me if we were never dating to begin with, right?”

“What?”

“You said we need to talk. If I’ve learned anything from Hollywood, my cousins, and my own experience,” (limited thought it might have been), “it’s that when someone says _we need to talk_ it’s usually a breakup. Or they’re cops and they’re trying to get you to confess to murder.” Lance paused, tapping his lips. “I feel like I should clarify that that last thing comes entirely from Hollywood.”

Keith shot him an unimpressed look. “Thanks, Lance. For a second there I thought you’d _actually_ been arrested for murder.”

“See? I have to defend my reputation.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but otherwise gave no response. Where Lance was doing his best to stay relaxed—leaned backward on his elbows, one leg crossed over the other and kicking at the air—Keith was pretty much the definition of tense. His feet were planted on the floor, and he was hunched over with his elbows on his knees. He stared at his hands as though he’d suddenly realized how uncool fingerless gloves were.

Lance sat up, frowning. “Okay, for real though. What’s your deal?”

For a moment, Keith didn’t answer, though he did twitch like he was about to make a break for the door. He clasped his hands together, closed his eyes, and let out a long, slow breath. “I need to tell you something, but before I do, I… You...” He paused, cracked his knuckles. “If you want me to leave, I’ll understand.”

Lance’s heart thudded painfully in his chest, and he scooted closer to Keith. Only Keith’s flinch stopped him from reaching out. “Hey, woah, what’s all this? Want you to leave? Keith, I’d never—”

“Maybe,” Keith said before Lance could finish, “you should wait until you know what it is before you promise anything.”

That only made Lance more nervous, but he fell silent and nodded for Keith to go on. Apparently Lance had misread this whole situation, which made him feel like an idiot—and also like the universe’s biggest jerk for letting Keith stew in whatever kind of self-conscious funk it was that had him thinking Lance was going to ditch him.

Keith took several too-quick breaths before opening his eyes and looking over at Lance. Their eyes didn’t quite lock, but that didn’t stop Lance’s breath from catching over the smothered fear in Keith’s gaze.

“I’m part Galra.”

Lance waited for Keith to continue. When he didn’t, Lance frowned. “Okay. And…?”

Keith’s eyes snapped up to Lance’s and stuck, wide-eyed and utterly baffled—which was fair, because Lance was feeling pretty lost himself. “What?” Keith whispered.

“You’re Galra,” said Lance. “Part Galra, whatever.” He waved a hand at Keith before he could jump in with a correction. “You’re part Galra _and…_ what? Does Zarkon have some kind of personal grudge against you? Is this a _you’re in danger because of me_ sort of deal, because if it is I’m gonna stop you right there because, bud. We’re paladins. Danger comes with the territory.”

Some of the tension bled out of Keith’s shoulders. He shook his head. “No, that’s not—there’s no _and_ , Lance.” He tugged off one of his gloves and turned his hand to give Lance a clear view of the patchy purple pigmentation. “I just recently found out I’m an alien. That’s it. I thought you should know.”

Slowly the pieces began to fall into place. They'd been out here for something like two months fighting Galra, cracking jokes about the enemy just to stay sane. There hadn't ever been any real heat behind them, at least as far as Lance was concerned. He'd always figured there had to be Galra out there somewhere who weren't part of Zarkon's army--but how would it look to Keith? To find out he was part Galra after hearing all his friends go on about how evil and gross and pathetic Galra were.

Well. Lance was going to have to fix that.

“ _Keith_.” Lance tried to fight the pout growing on his face, but he couldn’t help it. He turned, crossed his arms, and stared at the side of Keith’s head. “Dude, seriously? After everything we’ve been through—all the battles, all the weird alien crap, the _haunted castle—_ you still have the gallra to accuse me of being that petty?”

Keith’s face went blank for a fraction of a second, and Lance almost broke character. Then an angry red flush swept over Keith, and Lance lost it.

“A _pun_ , Lance?” Keith spluttered, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of Lance’s laughter. “ _Now_?”

Lance stifled his laughter long enough to flash Keith a smirk. “Now, now. No need to be so catty.”

Keith snatched up Hunk’s pillow and chucked it at Lance’s head. Laughing, Lance caught the pillow and flopped over on top of it, crossing his arms an inch from Keith’s legs and looking up at him with a sly smile. “So tell me, what’s a cute dollra like you doing in a palace like this?”

The red in Keith’s face intensified, and he covered his face in his hands in a vain attempt to salvage his dignity. “Why are you like this?”

“Charming and funny?”

“Weird and full of yourself,” Keith shot back. But he was _definitely_ grinning now, behind his hands, and Lance counted that as a victory. “You really don’t care?”

Lance reached up one hand to flick Keith in the forehead. “Don’t be thick, you overgrown Zubat. Of course I don’t.” He paused. “Do you?”

“I… I don’t know anymore. I _did_.” Keith balled his hand into a fist, hiding the purple spots. “It’s kind of hard to stay worked up over something when everyone else treats it like no big deal.”

“Maybe because it _is_ no big deal,” Lance said. “And what do you mean _everyone else_?” He sat up, scowling. “Am I the last to know?”

Keith shook his head. “Pidge was there when I found out, and I just told Hunk like five minutes ago. I… haven’t figured out how to tell Shiro yet. Or Allura and Coran. They’ve all lost so much to the Galra--”

“Yeah, but they _know_ you. You really think anyone here cares who your parents were?”

“I guess not.”

They were silent for a while, Keith quiet and subdued on one end of the bed, Lance fidgeting beside him. The mood between them wasn’t quite somber—not as it had been when Keith first arrived—but it was awkward, and Lance didn’t like it.

“Hey, Keith?”

“Hm?”

“Knock, knock.”

Keith arched one eyebrow, slowly and disdainfully.

Lance leaned backward with a lazy smile. “Come on, Keith. I know you know how this works. Knock, knock.”

With a dramatic groan, Keith caved. “Who’s there?”

“The Galra.”

The look Keith shot him could have rivaled a hundred angry hornets for prickliness, but Lance kept up his placid smile until Keith, slowly, asked, “The Galra who?”

“The Galraxy Garrison is gonna be super pissed they expelled the first proof of extraterrestrial life to show his fuzzy purple face.”

The laugh seemed startled out of Keith, and he stifled it quickly, but it was too late. Lance’s smile became a grin wide enough to hurt his cheeks, and he leaned toward Keith, waggling his eyebrows.

“Eh? The _Galra_ -xy Garrison?”

Keith planted a hand on Lance’s face and shoved him away. “Oh my god, Lance. That was horrible.”

“I think you mean it was Haggarible.”

Keith laughed again, a little brighter, a little looser. He still had one hand over his mouth, like he was embarrassed to be laughing at Lance’s puns. Not like he didn’t _always_ laugh, sooner or later. Not like Lance hadn’t spent the last few weeks testing the comedy waters to figure out exactly what Keith’s buttons were. And puns? Totally Keith’s thing.

Beaming, Lance closed the distance between them and pulled Keith into a one-armed hug. “Don’t worry about what the others are going to think, Keith,” he said as Keith relaxed into the hug. “Trust me. Everything’s gonna be Gal-right.”

Keith’s elbow dug into Lance’s side. “I hate you so much right now.”

“You know you love me, Keith, don’t fight it.”

Another laugh, softer this time, and Lance felt his heart trip over itself in his chest. “You know something?" Keith asked. "You might be right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thank you to the folks on Tumblr who helped out with all of Lance's puns: JJ (linesofreturninggeese) and their sister godspeed-little-taters, Suz (susie-d-applesauce), ball-hard-in-miklagard, fullmetaldude1, and Orelia (survivorofhighstorms).


	4. Epilogue

Once Keith got over that first big hurdle—telling Lance, actually _telling_ him and not just waiting for him to find out—things got easier.

They stayed in Hunk's room for the better part of an hour, until Keith’s heart stopped trying to beat right out of his chest, until Lance had told so many bad jokes Keith’s sides hurt from laughing, until they lay side by side on the bed with their hands linked and pink dusting their cheeks.

Eventually they returned together to the Green Lion’s hangar, figuring they owed it to Hunk, at least, to prove that everything was all right again. They found him waiting with a plate of green food-goo cookies and a smile he barely kept under wraps when he saw them. Pidge spared them the briefest of glances, an apathetic cheer, and a wave of their hand, before they turned back to their code.

Keith wasn’t fooled, though. He saw Pidge’s smile when they turned to snag a cookie from Hunk’s tray.

Armed with Lance, Hunk, and Pidge’s encouraging smiles, Keith decided to finish ripping the band-aid off. When the four of them joined Shiro, Coran, and Allura for dinner, Keith stopped at the foot of the table and waited until the others had noticed and fallen silent before he began.

“There’s something you should know...”

He shouldn’t have been surprised, really, that they took it in stride. That Coran had known from the moment the castle scanned them all as part of its medical protocols. That Allura had sensed something in his Quintessence the first time they met. Shiro’s quiet smile and warm hug should have been the least surprising of all, after their years at the Garrison, after a late-night confession before the Kerberos mission that Shiro thought of Keith as the little brother he never had.

Their effortless acceptance still left him breathless and teary-eyed, and he clung to Shiro until he trusted his voice not to waver.

“I guess that explains why I never knew my parents.”

He saw the words stall each of the others, and realized it was the first time he’d ever voiced that particular secret. He’d never even said it to Shiro, not outright, though of course Shiro knew. I’m an orphan. Pidge caught his sleeve and stared up at him for a moment before they pulled him into a hug. He wondered if they were thinking about what he’d said to them when they’d wanted to leave in search of their family. _Everyone in the universe has a family._

It seemed like so long ago, though it had only been about a couple of months. Months in which he’d learned to pilot a giant sentient robot lion, months in which he’d been separated from the others, then reunited.

Months in which he’d had a family, though he was only just beginning to realize it.

Heart light, smile easy on his lips, he allowed Allura to study the spreading patches of pigmentation on his hand while he tried to stop Lance from torturing them all with his seemingly endless supply of Galra puns. Across from him, Shiro and Pidge mused about the benefits of having an unknown element with Galra DNA on their team.

Keith felt silly, now, for being so worked up about telling them. Pidge caught his eye and raised an eyebrow. _I told you,_ they mouthed. Keith chuckled, shaking his head, and let Lance lecture him on the best colors to wear to complement purple skin.


End file.
